


the sands shape the wind

by Nillegible



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe: Necromancy Mashup, Canon-Typical Violence, I'm not kidding, M/M, alternate universe: royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21702922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nillegible/pseuds/Nillegible
Summary: When the desert calls Sasori to save a stillborn infant with flame-red hair, he steps into Death to bring him back. Sasori knows whose heir this is. The whole desert knows.
Relationships: Sandaime Kazekage | Third Kazekage/Sasori
Comments: 7
Kudos: 48





	the sands shape the wind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shipcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipcat/gifts).



> I'm sorry it took this long, @shipcat! But here's the fic that you requested, and I really hope that you like it! I know I meant to write something with a middle eastern influence...but somehow what I ended up with was an unholy mashup of themes from Garth Nix's The Old Kingdom series, MDZS, and Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean. I've never written these characters before, but I hope I did okay! You're a really amazing person in this fandom and I admire you a lot, Thank You So Much for what you do!
> 
> (Title kind of from the line "No one is surprised, when wind sculpts the dunes. Or when dunes shape the wind," from the INCREDIBLE story Embers, by Vathara, which I have read too many times to be considered an entirely sane person as it is 700k words long and impossible to put down in the middle)

Legends tell of the necromancers, northern snow-children with their seven bells of blessed bronze and ebony wood, with their notes that ring true between Life and Death. The legends speak of how when a necromancer slips into Death, the ground and air frost over, that you can feel the chill of something darker than winter until the necromancer returns with lingering souls returned from Death.

Sasori is the farthest thing from a northern snow-child, he’s seen snow only twice in his life, and doesn’t care much for it. There is nothing in the desert but sand, of course. Sand, and the wind that shapes it. Sasori is a traveler, a wanderer who traverses by foot the vast deserts that lesser men would be driven mad in. Sometimes when a caravan passes near enough but he has no business with them, he’ll cover his face with his hood and walk away. People who see the dark hooded figure will clutch their totems and make signs to ward off evil. Sometimes, he will approach and buy supplies. They always stare, but no one has ever been brave enough to ask him where he gets his coin, and he’s never needed to bargain.

The legends that speak of Sasori, out here far from most oases or permanent settlements are all wrong. They call him a Djinn, who would grant you wishes if you sought him out. Or a princely creature from Fae who is lost, and trades with passing caravans with fairy gold. He’s heard them call him a lonely thief or an evil spirit who will lure reckless travelers into the shifting dunes for profit and blood.

Not one has ever called him a necromancer, though that would be the closest word for is what he is. That is why Sasori is _here._

He’s lying beneath the stars, the desert chill kept at bay with spell-fire that spits out flickering green-and-gold charter-marks as steadily as it emits heat when he feels a _tug_. Someone, near, was making the crossing into Death.

It feels twisted, confused. This person was not meant to be Crossing.

Sasori rises and follows the feeling, letting the whispers on the wind carry him toward a caravan a few miles away, just in time to see the midwife rise from her patient. He doesn’t need to look to know that the woman has stopped breathing.

“The child, too?” asks one of the bystanders.

A young man, too like the dead woman in appearance to be her husband, is cradling the tiny infant, and he’s crying too hard to answer the questions, or to let them see how the child is. Too still, and not breathing like his mother, but Sasori strides forward, darting between the watchers and lays a hand on the infant’s forehead.

“What is his name?” he asks, his eyes fixed on the tiny, still form. “Tell me,” he says, more strongly, when the man fails to respond.

“…Gaara,” he says, a broken whisper but it is enough, between one heart-beat and the next Sasori is in Death, ankle-deep in the river that flows through all of the Borderlands, ready to sweep any soul that crosses over through the nine gates and _beyond._

He can hear the infant wailing, close - good, if the child had crossed the lesser gates, he could still be recovered, but he would be… _different-_ and following the angry wailing he finds the baby lying in the sandy shallows near the banks of the river.

The sand is curling protectively around him, keeping him from being swept away, and also away from the shadow-carrion-eaters, that had crept to the shore of the river and stared at the child with their beady eyes. Most flee as Sasori approaches, and kicking the water at them has the last two squealing and retreating in fear. He leans over and gathers the child in his arms. “ _Gaara_ ,” he says, the name a powerful enough anchor to pin a newborn in place, to Life, as he walks back against the current. “ _We will return._ ”

Before he opens his eyes in Life again, he can hear Gaara crying.

It is the only sound; the other members of the caravan and even the camels and horses have fallen silent in fear. He can see the accusation in their wide eyes, can see _necromancer_ writ clear across their terrified faces. Sasori knows which necromancer these travelers are thinking of as they stare. These people have heard of him.

He turns to leave; he’s done what he intended to do, when he hears a quiet, “Thank you. My nephew...thank you so much.”

When he looks over his shoulder the man is on his knees, kneeling in respect as well as one can when holding a crying infant. “ _Wait_ , please,” he says from that position. “If you come with us then my brother-in-law could-”

Sasori abhors waiting. He turns away sharply, loosing a whistle that calls a wind that carries him away, depositing him back at his campsite. He closes his eyes and resolves to forget the tiny child that even the sand in _Death_ had strived to protect. There is only one man in all of the Old Kingdom who commands the deserts in that way, and only on his behalf would the desert have called Sasori there to save a young boy dying before his time.

The spell-fire burns itself low, but sleep eludes him. The memory of the child in his arms unwilling to be put aside from his mind. He had rescued the _King’s heir_. That soft young man, the child’s…uncle…hadn’t had an ounce of the _Blood,_ in him. Which meant his sister probably hadn’t either. It’s surprising that the king had finally chosen a woman. _My brother-in-law,_ he hears, again.

He wonders when the Kazekage had turned desperate enough to take someone so powerless for his wife. Not that it matters. Sasori would likely never see the king or his precious heir ever again.

Sasori sees the three children, all younger than fourteen, a few hours before they see him. As much as he likes to wander, he also likes to make things, and he’s fashioned himself a comfortable home and workshop in the deep caves in these mountains. The winds howl through the caverns and rise straight up from the desert low-lands carrying enough sand to scrub an unwary climber right off the cliff-face. He hadn’t expected to ever get visitors here. His servants, puppet-sendings made of wood and animated with magic, held together and bound to his will with careful symbols that glow and spark waited on him; cooking and cleaning and eliminating the need to hire human help.

He listens in silence as the three children noisily climb far closer than he’d ever expected anyone would ever come and debates the merits of shoving them off the cliff so no one would try again.

The curiosity, wanting to know why they were here, wins out. Barely.

It takes them another two hours to find him, and instead of surprise or shock, he sees recognition and satisfaction on their faces. “It’s you! We found you!”

“Did you? And who am I supposed to be?” he asks mildly. He’s not as unaffected as he’s acting, though, because he recognizes the youngest child. with his blood-red hair and cat-green eyes, and a presence beyond the mundane that speaks of magic. Gaara _._

 _“_ You’re Sasori!” says the girl, and she too has the _blood_ , has the traces of power that had once been so familiar to him, though in her and the other boy it is not as strong as it is in Gaara (How much of Death had slipped back into Life along with this child? Life was strength and growth and change, but Death was _power,_ and Gaara had woken in its shallows).

“I am,” he says.

“We’ve been looking for you! You’re Gaara’s god-father.”

“Is that so.” Not really a question, because it can’t be true. “I’m afraid I was never informed. I have no intention of being his god-father, you may leave now.”

“You know it doesn’t work like that. You saved his life, so he’s your responsibility! Dad wasn’t pleased, but Uncle insisted.” The weakling uncle with the blue eyes, who’d stood by and cried while sister and sister’s-son died and did nothing? _He_ had insisted, and changed his King’s mind? Somehow Sasori cannot imagine it.

“Your uncle quoted the Old Customs at the King?” he asks, just for confirmation.

Somehow that surprises the children, and they freeze and glance at each other. “Our uncle, _the King,_ made it an order, and our father could not refuse,” says Gaara, finally. “When we asked him to name a stand-in, at least for the ceremonies, he said no.”

“Which is why you have to come!” says the other boy. Sasori looks at him for a moment, then back at Gaara. _Our Uncle,_ which implied they were siblings. The girl has her mother’s coloring but these two… “You are _Rasa’s_ children,” he says when he finally places the only person related to the King who would be allowed to call him brother. It explains the hair, at least.

It gets him three confirmations of varying degrees of confusion. “Yes, we are. I am Temari, and this in Kankuro. You…you thought that we were the King’s children.” says the girl. “Why?”

Because the Desert had drawn him to save a young prince, the sand in Death had protected him, and with that as evidence, why would Sasori have cared about something like _hair_ _color_? “Because Gaara is his heir,” says Sasori, gesturing towards Gaara. “I drew the obvious conclusion.”

“I’m not his heir yet,” says Gaara, shaking his head, that’s why we came to find you. For the ceremony to be legal-”

“Your parents must give you up, and as your mother is not there, it falls to the person with the next greatest claim to you,” says Sasori, and receives a nod in answer.

“Very well, I relinquish my rights to you. I suppose your mother’s brother will have the next strongest claim, you may use him for the ceremony.”

“No,” he says, “You have to come. It’s not binding unless you tell our father or the King yourself.”

Sasori is irritated, and he stands. “You spoke my name when you met me. You know that I am Sasori, the Scorpion of the Red Sands, who was _banished,_ never to return to Sunagakure.” He looks Gaara in the eye. “You may tell your _King_ that if he regrets not executing me, he may come here _and try_ to finish me off. I would suggest he formalize your position as heir before he tries.”

“You’ve been pardoned! Uncle revoked the banishment. He told us to give you this if you didn’t want to come,” says Gaara, and takes out a small key from the pouch at his side. It’s small but it _glows,_ with Charter and Free Magic both, and for a moment Sasori is stunned into silence. _That bastard._ The one thing Sasori would not refuse outright, the only material thing he could still be tempted by. _A threat disguised as a gift,_ he thinks, _if I had grown soft and were inclined to take it that way._

Sasori looks down into fierce green, kohl-rimmed eyes and makes his decision. “You must be tired, rest. We shall leave in the morning.”

The moment the strange entourage enters the palace gates, people stare in confusion. Then they snap out of it, pausing what they’re doing to bow deeply, perhaps a little deeper than the extended royal family rightly deserves, but the children don’t seem to notice. They quickly explain that they need an audience with the Kazekage, as Sasori was here on his personal bequest. It takes a few moments for them to produce the right aide, who bows appropriately and offers to escort them to the king who was meeting his councilors.

The palace is different, but the layout is unchanged, and Sasori can tell that they are not being led to the throne room, that vast chamber where the King should hold his court, but one of the smaller council-chambers meant for more clandestine meetings. “His meeting is not over, but he did say to bring you the moment that you have returned…” the aide explains as he leads them further in.

He shoots nervous darting looks at Sasori every so often – something that should be a terrible breach of etiquette - but it makes Sasori smile instead of taking offense. It is always flattering to be _remembered._

The guards posted at the doors to this more-private meeting chamber look suspiciously at their appearance; still dusty and unkempt from travel, but allow the aide inside to inform the king of their arrival. In less than a minute the three councilors inside are sent out, and the aide says with a weak smile and a nod of respect, “His majesty will see you now.”

Sasori steps aside, letting the children walk in first, before stepping inside to meet his king after all these years. There’s a second person there, familiar also, and Sasori focuses on him. The red-haired father-of-these children, one of Sasori’s childhood companions, Rasa. (He is not afraid to look at his King, to see what changes time has wrought upon the handsome visage. Really.)

“Well done, children,” says the voice, and Sasori doesn’t flinch or react to it, calmly meeting Rasa’s challenging gaze instead of the King’s. It’s beyond impolite not to bow to the king as the children had on entry, but he is not here to make nice with Sunagakure or her Kazekage. He is here to give up a child who isn’t his, and take back a small golden chest with powerful charter magic that _is_.

“You may all leave now, we would speak with Sasori in private,” says the Kazekage, sounding unaffected by the blatant disrespect.

Sasori responds, finally looking at the king directly, “That doesn’t sound safe now, does it? Surely your honorable cousin would prefer to supervise as your guard.” It’s an insult though somewhat delicately phrased, it implies that Sasori is more powerful than the king, though that is the truth. Or was, once. Sasori isn’t sure how the man before him has changed since the last time they sparred. It has been years, and he looks better filled out, now.

Rasa looks uncertain, but the King says, “Leave us,” and he has no choice but to obey. They wait while the family leaves and the door shuts firmly behind them. The King doesn’t say anything else for a long moment and Sasori refuses to be the one to break it.

“You came,” says the King, finally.

“I didn’t come for _you_ , or your precious heir,” Sasori snaps. “The boy brought me the key. And what are you playing at? Having his parents renounce him before the crowning… you know it’s only symbolic. That boy is your heir. Has been since the moment he was born.”

“Is that what you think,” asks the King, though it doesn’t sound like a question.

“I was the one present at the event,” says Sasori coolly.

“He has been _our_ heir since the moment you brought him to life. _Ours_ ,” and he looks at Sasori significantly with his pale eyes, as though he was making sense.

“I did not claim him,” he says. Was that what he was to be accused of? Of marking a child as his own when he had the chance?

“Not…” and finally the king seems to be losing the put-open evenness of temperament, and a crack of irritation is visible across his face. “Not that sort of claim, not a spell-claim. You know what you’ve done!”

For once Sasori was actually at a loss though, because he _truly hadn’t_ done anything to the boy. “I just brought him back. You’ve seen me do it before. It’s not hard. I even brought that annoying cousin of yours back, after he was stabbed that one time, remember?” If Sasori was supposed to take responsibility as Rasa’s godparent too, he’s cutting his losses and running for it, he really is. “It’s easy for a few moments after they die.”

The king is silent for a long time. “I beg that you will take my word for it. Your claim is as strong over him as mine.” Perhaps Sasori is still looking at him like he’s crazy, because the king looks away, brow creased lightly in thought.

“…he plays the Sheng,” he says finally. “Not for battle, people wouldn’t understand-” of course they wouldn’t, the last time they heard a musical instrument in battle would have been Sasori with his Xiao raising armies of the dead – their own, their enemies’, all rising to obey his every whim. Cowards. “-but if you _listen_ to him…Or if you want proof, the flowers in Temari’s garden never wither.”

A young necromancer, truly? It was _rare_ for someone to have that much power when unskilled in the arts, and Sasori thinks back to the boy. There hadn’t been any free magic clinging to him, all his possessions had had clearly defined charter-magic woven in, and Sasori just hadn’t bothered looking closer. But now the King’s insistence that Sasori return makes more sense. “You wish me to teach him,” he says. After all, the King had always been attached to the idea of a pet necromancer. An _heir,_ a _prince_ who is a necromancer, well. He wished the boy luck.

“No, that’s not it,” he says softly.

“Oh?” he asks, wondering what excuse the king would offer to make him seem less greedy. In a move eerily similar to his heir, the King rummages in his pocket, before pulling out something small and golden.

“It was an excuse,” he confesses.

Sasori reels back, then steps closer instinctively, bewildered and yet _desperate,_ as he sees a small golden globe resting in the king’s palm. “That. That was locked away…” _fool, he had the key, he sent you the key. What did you think he meant?_ The King is _holding_ it in his hand, against bare skin. It is…it is beyond taboo but he’s holding it carefully. Like it’s something _precious_ , and Sasori cannot stop himself, asks, “ _How dare you?_ _That’s **mine**_.”

And it was, it was Sasori’s golden core, that he had dug out of his own heart and locked away, sick and tired of love and the grief and pain that it made him feel. After his parents’ deaths, and his best friend’s, and then the soldiers under his command, he’d given up. Love had done nothing for him, ever. But it wasn’t until one of the darkest nights of the battle when the bodies lay thick and bloody across the sand that this man before him commanded with his will, that Sasori had finally given in and tore out the offending core, his _soul_. _“How did you even find it?”_ he asks.

“It was _you._ How could I not?” he asks softly, and the anger slips away in little wisps as the king steps closer to him, covering the last few steps between them and reaching out with the small blinding ball of light. “I had hoped… I had hoped you would want it back.”

“If I had, I wouldn’t have left it,” Sasori says, but he can hear the uncertainty in his voice. He doesn’t feel it anymore, hasn’t felt _anything,_ not love nor anger or betrayal -not truly - not since he locked away his golden core, left his sword in his tent and walked out to the battlefield with only his Xiao in his hands and a haunting melody filling his mind. The sand had been red and heavy with blood, the air sharp with the scent of it, but the sound of his flute had been gentle as he called the dead to wake. (Of course, then there’d been the screaming.)

“You came for it,” whispers the king, and Sasori does reach out his own hand, feels the warmth of the king’s fingers as he presses the precious globe into Sasori’s, and folds his fingers around it. There’s something about the way he said that that makes Sasori think that the king had meant to say, ‘ _you came for me,_ ’ instead. It’s a familiar weight in Sasori’s hands for all that he’d held it for only moments when placing it in a small golden chest. He looks into warm, pale eyes as his hand is guided towards Sasori’s chest and the King’s long quick fingers loosen the collar of Sasori’s robes enough to bare his skin.

He resists for a moment, standing there, his robe gaping open indecently, his soul, or the closest thing to it, clutched in his hand. “I don’t…” and he’s not sure. Not sure if he wants to take this back, had decided his life would be better without – but the memories feel incomplete. Though he cannot understand the grief that led him to his choices, he _remembers_ that it had been unbearable. That it had almost robbed him of his sanity.

“Please,” says the king, and Sasori relents, half of it is merely curiosity as he lets the king press Sasori’s fingers against his chest, pressing the glowing golden core within him, sinking beneath his skin. He stares into the pale eyes, filled with _something_ , and slowly he begins to identify the wealth of emotions there. Chief among which is _hope,_ a desperate all-encompassing hope, one incapable of being denied.

Sasori stares for a heart-beat, and then one heart-beat more, fingers warm against his chest as the King gazes into his eyes as though seeking something. Sasori’s not sure what he’s waiting for, but he can tell that something is changing and then he _feels_ , like a vice crushing and crushing his heart because he remembers, he feels, and though one hand is still held tightly in the king’s grip against Sasori's now pounding, hurting heart, he raises the other to trace the king’s sharp cheek.

He leans in into Sasori’s trembling fingers, as Sasori manages to stutter, “I, I didn’t…” _I didn’t remember. I didn’t know, I’m so so sorry,_ he means, but all that comes out is a hitching gasp before the king releases his hand and tips Sasori’s face up and kisses him softly. Sasori trails his fingers through blue-dark hair, and though the King’s eyes are closed Sasori’s are open, even if all he can see is dark lashes and pale skin. He hasn’t seen this man in years, he’s not going to close his eyes now.

“Forgive me,” says the King, when he breaks away. “I should not have lost faith in you. I didn’t know what you had done. When you saved Gaara – Yashamaru recognized you – I began to hope, so I looked. And then I found it.” _I finally understood_ , he means, Sasori remembers him well enough now to understand the unspoken words. _I understood why you changed so suddenly. I understood how to get you back._

“I think I meant to take it back. I just couldn’t… I couldn’t concentrate…” it’s coming back to him now, that desperate, chilling fear that his love and his countrymen would all be destroyed by a stronger foe, his fingers trembling at the thought, unable to draw in a deep breath. He’d wanted to lock it all away, wanted not to feel, to give it all up so he could focus on the task at hand. Sasori supposes that he had sort of succeeded.

He takes a deep, steadying breath as he tries to work through the memories. Everything since then seems faded and washed out in comparison, he hadn’t realized how empty his life had been since he took out his golden core. Just ten minutes ago he would have said that he was content, unable to even comprehend the absence.

The king shows no signs of letting go and Sasori relaxes into the embrace. It’s both familiar and new. “Have you gotten taller since then?” he asks, lightly stroking the firm chest against his to confirm that yes, the King was more muscular than back then, too. He feels a soft huff of laughter in his ear.

“You look exactly the same,” is whispered into his hair, and it sounds almost reverent.

“I haven’t changed,” he says, and he feels the king’s arms squeeze around him. He understands what Sasori means. _I haven’t changed. I still love you. I’m still yours._

“Will you stay?” he asks, and Sasori doesn’t have to think about it, says, “ _Yes_ ,” firmly.

There would be many things to sort out, even if the banishment had been rescinded people would fear Sasori, fear the carnage and the destruction he could wreak if he desired. Last time, when facing that challenge his king had told him to leave, and Sasori had left, unable to think of any reason to stay. This time, he would.

“You had my _core_ in your _pocket,_ ” he adds, with the faintest touch of honest incredulity, just to feel the King shake with laughter.

Yes, this time Sasori would definitely stay.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! Please let me know what you thought, I'd love to know. Thank you for reading!


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